Canada – Brokentooth (Issue 9)

November 1, 2014

It was during a moment of desperate delirium that I had my revelation for this winter’s little sojourn. I decided I was going to ride a bike to a place so cold and so remote, its inhabitants had never seen a motorcycle in the flesh. A place with no roads, no trails, no way to travel overland but for a few weeks in winter when the muskeg, peat swamp and salt water tidal flats freeze hard enough to provide an 800 km lifeline for hundreds of people. True, it’s counter intuitive, but up north of the 56th parallel it’s only the coldest grip of winter that brings a time of plenty… In that vein I took stock of the woeful condition of my overland bike/gear, slammed my fist on the shop table and swore I would do what it took to ride 8,000 kms in a Canadian winter and make it back with vigorous life and all limbs attached. I was going to do this right…

…Now imagine you’re hundreds of kilometres further from human footprints than you’ve ever been in your life, it’s -30°C and your right eye is suddenly blind from a frozen cornea. The lack of depth perception makes it impossible to remain vertical for more than a few hundred meters at a time and you just know a sprained wrist or broken bone out here will come with a whole new set of consequences… The lone nurse at the ‘station’ tells me it’ll likely be weeks before my sight fully returns, assuming I haven’t frozen it too deeply, otherwise I’m now a pirate…